Shatterday
by hanyou
Summary: Mireille's heartsick thoughts that fateful night. Implied M/K; episode 21 spoilers.


The first thing I realized upon returning home that night was that you weren't coming back. 

I'm not sure how I knew it, but I just did. And I was somehow unable to draw any consolation from that fact, even though I should have welcomed it.

As I walked among the wreckage of our - my - apartment, I couldn't help but think of how much it paralleled my own life. Confused, broken, and in utter shambles. My thoughts were a loose collection of barely coherent pieces, and I had no idea where to begin.

So I sat down on the edge of our - my - bed and cradled my chin in my hands, letting the air from my lungs and ignoring the raw feeling inside as I did so. In spite of it all, I couldn't say that I was entirely surprised; you had always been a disturbing enigma, so much so that I once cast you away from me. Despite the childish innocence you possessed, I had seen what you could do in the heat of battle, and it was a thoroughly chilling sight. Nothing, I reminded myself, **nothing** good could have possibly come from the awkward paradox that embodied who you were - an unassuming, waif of a girl who recoiled in horror at her own, mysteriously endowed abilities.

But at the same time, I found myself struggling mightily with the revelation. True, I was often shocked at the brutal efficiency with which you carried out our tasks, but you were otherwise so gentle and so reticent that I often thought of your darker side as being a completely seperate entity, and not a part of the same whole. I couldn't bring the two of you together, even though I knew I must, and I soon abandoned the endeavor. It was a cruel juxtaposition I didn't want to make, and I found myself instead clinging to who I thought you were, who I still wanted to believe you are. Quiet. Selfless. Remorseful.

I wondered then why I was making excuses, why I didn't want you to be the murderer. It seemed I could think of a million different outcomes that would have made this so much easier to handle, but all that should matter was that I had at last solved the mystery of my past - and more importantly, that I had let the villain live. After a life long of swearing bitter vengeance, I allowed the opportunity to escape.

I looked up. And for what reason? I could feel the initial numbness fading, and a despairing pain begin to ache in its place.

_Where are you?_

I thought immediately of Chloe, smirking in her triumph. Rage sprang from within me at once, lashing out at the image and banishing it from my mind. I viciously bit my lip and forced my anger to cool, reminding myself that what happened was not her fault. Why couldn't I feel a portion of this hatred for you? More importantly, why I couldn't I summon even a fraction of the smoldering drive for revenge I'd had all my life?

I reflected upon it reluctantly. I felt betrayed, but more by myself than you. I should have realized sooner the impact your past would have on me, but then again, I never had any reason to suspect that we were linked in such a way.

_Why did this happen to us?_

I laid back on the bed then, staring at the ceiling as if it held all the answers. I passed on my usual shower, tired of being wet from the rain water and feeling otherwise too weak to move. I thought again of your safety, your wearabouts, then suddenly my blood ran cold and halted the breath in my throat.

You killed my family and singlehandedly caused a lifetime of hurt. Yet I showed you kindness, sheltered and protected you, even sacrificed my own uncle for you. What would my parents think? If they were watching me from somewhere, from anywhere, how would they feel?

_How am I supposed to handle this?_

I felt sick then, and my guilt overwhelmed me, crashing against me repeatedly in forceful waves. I felt small and insignificant in its wake, stripped utterly bare of any protective lies I had cloaked myself with. It was wrong for me to care, wrong for me to wonder, when you were responsible for everything. It was bad enough that I had spared your life, but how could I continue to find softness for you in my heart after knowing all that I did now?

The pain that had been nagging at me since you fled from the rooftop rose from where I had been suppressing it, and I squeezed my eyes shut in futile defense. I whimpered at its sheer enormity; I was beyond tears and they would not come. I felt an intense, burning misery that made my chest physically ache as I wallowed in the knowledge that I was a truly despicable person. Even as I asked "How could I?", even as I shied away from my parents' memory in inescapable shame, I missed you, wanted to feel your warm body against my back in this bed that now seemed so impossibly huge.

It was late when I finally fell asleep that night, and not even because my mind had stopped, but because my remaining energy was sapped from struggling not to think of you. I awoke in a start three hours later, my heart seized in a morbid kind of terror, as I rolled over to reach for you and fell headfirst into the emptiness that greeted me.

Author's Notes/Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to take credit for something as awesome as Noir, I can't. And just to issue a fair warning, this is the first Noir fic I've been happy with enough to submit here, and the first fic period I've uploaded in about three years. So if I'm a little out of practice, sorry! ;


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